Wound infection followed by a breakdown of surgical or traumatic wounds still remains in the forefront of wound care, despite several available measures to prevent this complication of wound healing, often threatening the life of the patient.
It has been documented that if the bacterial counts in the wound exceed 10.sup.5 organisms/1 gram of the wound tissue, the infection is a serious problem that without proper medical attention results in systemic sepsis. Microorganisms infect wounds originating either from within the human body, which is a known reservoir for pathogenic organisms, or from environmental origin (military wounds). The most common microorganisms are S. aureus, St. epidermis, beta haemolytic Streptococci, E. coli, Klebsiella and Pseudomonas species and among the anaerobic bacteria, the Clostridium welchii or tartium, which are the cause of gas gangrene, mainly in deep traumatic wounds.
It is quite understandable that through the history of wound care, several methods and drugs were tested and used to prevent or reduce the risk of infected wounds. Generally, it can be said that many of the antimicrobial treatments adversely affect the wound and the treatment becomes toxic not only to microorganisms but also to the cell-wound tissue. Another limitation is that many treatments affect only the surface of the wound while some common bacteria (Pseudomonas) quickly merge into the repair tissue, forming multiple foci with puss. This is a situation that occurs with very popular drugs based on silver, iodine and cerium, which link actively with proteins of the wound tissue without diffusing deep enough through the wound to reach the microorganism.
Antibiotics, both systemically or topically administered, represented a milestone in the treatment of infected wounds. However, antibiotics, per se, may represent another "toxic" burden to a patient with multiple injuries, deep burns over a large body area, or where the liver function is stressed by the wound toxins. Only topical administration of antibiotics may result in formation of bacterial strain resistant to additional treatment with antibiotics.